My Painting by the Sea won an award!

I was very pleased that my oil painting  “Yellow House by the Sea won honorable mention at recent show with the Independent Art Society.  Oil painting, is a fairly new medium for me so it was quite encouraging especially since there were so many really good paintings in the show. 

The judge was Paul Bachem a very accomplished oil painter whose work I greatly admire he wrote this about the painting “ Although there is a sunlit feel to this painting, I found myself reacting to what seemed like loneliness here. The house sits amid a rather sparse setting and, as is always the case in my own work, I find myself wondering about the people who live there out in the middle of all that quiet. I felt the same way about this piece as I often do about Andrew Wyeth’s work. I don’t know if this is what you intended Vivien, but that is how it struck me when I first saw it. “

The painting was one of a few I did on Block Island while visiting off-season. (You can see more on my June 29, 2014 post )  I am always very relaxed on Block Island and enjoy the quiet before the summer crowds. The yellow house is actually a Bed and Breakfast called Avonlea where we once stayed and I was painting it from one of the Blue Dory Cottages, which look towards it. I really enjoyed painting at this spot for all I could hear was the ocean waves and the birds chirping, some so very friendly they would come over close to me as if to watch me paint. And yes the Island during off-season has a rather haunting loneliness feeling of a Wyeth painting. 

The End of Old Dock Rd

My mother passed away in August. I want to scatter my mother's ashes some place near the sea since she always loved it so. And we gave her a small memorial, with her close friends and family, which included poetry, music, beautiful opera singing by my son's girlfriend and of course irises to plant (my mother's name was Iris), a memorial that I hope honored her life and spirit. I so much wanted to return to the spot where I took her a few times, it was close to her nursing home in Kings Park. Finally the other week I was able to and I painted this small painting in oils. I hope to return again to do more paintings. Barely dry, I brought it for a group show and it is now hanging at the IAS show at the Plainview Old Bethpage Library.